


Sweater Paws

by Jupiter_the_Firefox



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternating Perspective, Angst, Apocalypse, Deaf Character, Disabled Character, M/M, Pandemics, Sad Ending, Survival, Switching Perspective, coronavirus gone wrong, rotating perspective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jupiter_the_Firefox/pseuds/Jupiter_the_Firefox
Summary: There was a tension in the world, an unspoken hum that everyone could feel. The dumb ignored it, the anxious fretted over it, and those somewhere in the middle just rode it out to see what happened. Karl Jacobs' own life has been struggling to settle as it was. A victim of a drunk driving accident late one night, he lost his hearing as well as a lot of his mobility, and has been fighting to regain independence that he knows, but refuses to admit, he will never have again.Just as the waves begin to settle and he adjusts to his new life, a national pandemic sweeps the globe. A deadly one. He's once again left scrambling for the coattails of survival, but this time, he's fighting with everyone else at a severe disadvantage against the world.Across the country, another man's life is completely thrown upside down by the virus. Everything he once knew is no longer in place, the rules of the game of life have changed.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Kudos: 8





	Sweater Paws

The room was quiet.

Karl Jacobs had his headphones drawn over his ears, his eyes darting along with the closed captions that left as quickly as they came, but at this point in his life he was a master at somehow dual-watching the words and the happenstances on whatever screen may be in front of him. His parents had always used subtitles growing up, and he remembered reading his first ‘bad word’ fondly with a soft chuckle as he nestled back further into his chair. He always got so totally engrossed in whatever he settled in on, he could be found locked in his favorite content creators’ streams for hours if they went on that long. He didn’t have to work today either, so he could waste and wheedle away the time like it was nothing. 

_ “Dream, you dick!”  _ Karl’s eyes followed along, hardly taking a fraction of a second to read as he lifted his gaze to watch Sapnap’s character begin to strike at Dream’s as revenge for attacking him.  _ “I swear to god if you kill me I’m gonna destroy your home.” _

_ “Is that a threat or a promise, Sappy? I’ll have to move in with you if you do *kiss*” _

_ “Fuck off!”  _

Karl chuckled as he drew one arm up to his face, the long cuffs of his too-big turtleneck covering his hand so far up that only his fingers poked out. He rested his wrist against his mouth, smelling his detergent and fabric softener as well as the soft cologne he sprayed onto his forearms after a shower. He’d gotten lost in it for a second and missed what happened on the live stream, and he was quick to refocus his attention to the goings-on flashing by on his screen.

There was a rustle as his door was nudged open, but Karl didn’t turn. His lips were parted ever so slightly as he remained locked onto his laptop’s screen, and he was so captivated by the goofy streamers that he startled when a cold, wet nose nudged itself into his limply hanging hand. Beside his chair stood a tall tan dog, her tail whipping side to side as she repeatedly licked at his fingers and sat down.

Karl gave a lasting, forlorning look to his laptop before taking off his headphones and stretching his legs out in front of himself. He twisted his back just a little bit with a painful wince but ignored it otherwise and then reached for his phone. His roommate’s name was run right across the top, and any other contacts he’d messaged were days old below it.

_ << Can you take Birdie out?  _

There was a second of silence as the message sent, and Karl checked quickly to make sure that his phone hadn’t somehow accidentally switched the ringer on. It was extremely inconvenient for the tiny switch to magically flip when he dropped it, which happened quite frequently. 

_ >> Yea, I’ll be in, just a second.  _

Karl laid his phone flat on his desk with one hand while the other rubbed at Birdie’s weird, floppy ears. They were folded about halfway up but always tried to stand on end. Despite her best efforts, they remained awkward. That’s what he got for training a mutt, he supposed. He glanced over when he saw his door get pushed open and he smiled at the sight of his friend. He watched him pat his leg and Birdie immediately rose to her paws, trotting out between his legs and heading towards the back door. Karl always felt bad making Q let Birdie out if he was hurting too much, but his friend insisted constantly that he didn’t mind. Some days were far worse than others, like today. The warm February weather did not reflect how Karl felt inside, and he slowly curled his legs up to his chest as he looked at the screen once more.

Following Sapnap’s perspective, obviously, had led them to the shared base they had initially started on in this server. It wasn’t their main roleplay one, this was just for fucking around. These were his favorites- he could tune out at any point, clean his room, draw, whatever, and it would still be waiting for him when he returned. He didn’t mind the lore. He hated when he had to miss it for work. It was just hard to sit there and read, constantly, if captions were provided at all.

The walls rattled and Karl knew that meant the back door had just been shut. He hadn’t been paying attention to whether Quackity had just let Birdie out, or had called her back in. He tilted his head slightly with a frown set on his lips, and then laughed when he felt Birdie’s thunderous paws slam against the wood flooring as she surely made a break for his room. Just as predicted, the husky mix sidled in through the cracked door and beelined right for his side, and he fondled her ears like he had been doing before Quackity came to take her outside.

“Good girl, good girl.” Karl mused, and watched her tongue go lolling out of her mouth as she stared up at him. He instinctively glanced back at the door to see his roommate standing there, arms crossed, a grin on his face. He asked a question silently with his eyes, and Karl answered it with a quick shake of his head. 

_ I’m fine.  _

The unspoken exchange was as normal as talk of the weather. Karl was comfortable with it. He liked how Quackity really didn’t make a big deal of things. He watched his friend shove off of the doorframe and head to the stairs. Karl hadn’t seen his room much. He knew that it had a big green screen taped up to a wall, a nice gaming setup, and a twin bed shoved into a corner of the room with room-darkening blinds. He lived perpetually in the night, it seemed. But Karl was glad that he was actually making it somewhere with his streaming career, and maybe one day, he’d even somehow make contact with Dream and his friends. 

Wouldn’t that be a dream. Karl chuckled to himself at the stupid pun and shook his head as he looked casually at his screen. It was blank, Sapnap’s stream had ended at some point during his couple minutes of distraction. He cursed under his breath and slowly set his feet down on the carpet. Already his hip twinged with discomfort but he hooked one hand on the foot of his bed, the other to the arm of his chair as he slowly rose. Birdie stayed glued right to his side as he shuffled across the room, stiff from watching Sapnap’s stream all day as well as the constant ache he felt. It was always made worse by these cold, rainy February mornings here in North Carolina.

Karl meandered through the kitchen, always keeping one hand on the wall, the fridge, the counter, whatever was closest to his right as he picked along. He kept his eyes focused down, but the floor was tidy as usual. Most wouldn’t consider a trip to the bathroom a casual inconvenience, but it was an embarrassingly frustrating fight to get there that Karl despised several times a day. It was easier when Birdie was in her gear, but that was hanging on a hook by the front door, and by the time he’d get her all suited up with her Yup harness, he was halfway to the bathroom and expended far more energy anyways.

Karl collapsed down onto his bed a slow ten minutes later. He could see Quackity now, chewing him out for not accepting an offer of help when he’d extended it earlier, but he just smiled. He didn’t want it. He was fine. Relying on others more than he already did would essentially put him in a state he refused to live in. He’d made it this far- he was out on his own, with a decent job that paid his half of the rent and utilities. It wasn’t what he wanted to do forever, sure. But there were plenty of online colleges he could attend and get a degree in something he’d eventually find passion in, even if the options were limited in that regard. His life was still steadying itself out since his move back in August, but with every passing day, the waves stilled. 

_ “You can’t move out!” Karl had winced in anger at the words coming from his mother’s mouth, it was a fight they’d engaged in many times over the past six months. “You won’t make it. You can’t. There’s no way. Back me up here!” She glanced at her husband, whose back was turned as he watched something on the television. _

_ Karl had no idea what he said. He watched her get frustrated and say something, but he wasn’t facing her, so he had no idea. Probably something about how he wouldn’t understand. Tears welled in his eyes, and he angrily hit his knuckles against the soft leather of the chair he was sitting in. He wanted to storm upstairs to his old room, but he hadn’t been there since the accident. He hadn’t been able to make it, despite the physical therapy and reconstruction of his shattered hip. _

**_Look at me! Listen! Talk to me!_ ** _ Karl wanted to scream, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice, and apparently, neither did anyone else. He swallowed down his frustrations tearfully and watched his mother stalk off into the kitchen. The ongoing argument was far from over, but this leg of it was done. He resigned himself to another loss, an etched tally on the scoreboard of losers. _

It was hard. Quackity had been a true blessing that had, essentially, been thrown into his lap. He couldn’t ask for a better living situation. He had a roommate who worked full-time as a streamer that could drive him to and from work whenever, since he made his own schedule, and he’d help whenever he needed it (on the rare occasions he’d suck up his pride and ask, or when an emergency demanded it.) Karl drew his phone out and up to his face, and he sent out a single word with a somewhat sad smile on his face.

_ << thanks. _

_ >> For what?  _

_ << being here.  _

**Author's Note:**

> I've committed the ultimate sin. I've started another long-term fic while still working on my first one. A grave error, but my inspiration for this has come out of nowhere. Ideas started coming to me and I couldn't pass up this muse. Be warned, where december 21, 2020 is fluffy and soft, this one will have no mercy. Read the tags and warnings, don't read if you don't like it.


End file.
